“Tyranny requires compliance. Democracy requires courage.”
In his State of the State Address on Wednesday, February 19, 2025, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker noted that, “it’s in fashion at the federal level right now to just indiscriminately slash school funding, healthcare coverage, support for farmers, and veterans’ services. They say they’re doing it to eliminate inefficiencies. But only an idiot would think we should eliminate emergency response in a natural disaster, education and healthcare for disabled children, gang crime investigations, clean air and water programs, monitoring of nursing home abuse, nuclear reactor regulation, and cancer research.”
He recalled, ““Here in Illinois, ten years ago we saw the consequences of a rampant ideological gutting of government. It genuinely harmed people. Our citizens hated it. Trust me—I won an entire election based in part on just how much they hated it.”
Pritzker invokes specter of Nazi Germany in rebuke of Trump administration.
Gov. Pritzker went on to address the dangers of the Trump administration directly. “We don’t have kings in America,” he said, “and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one…. If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.”
He recalled how ordinary folks outnumbered Nazis who marched in Chicago in 1978 by about 2,000 to 20, and noted, “Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the ‘tragic spirit of despair’ overcome us when our country…
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